Kaikōura farmer fined $35,000 for failing to register hundreds of cattle

Trevor Bolton failed to track or record cattle movements on and off his farms. Photo / Brett Phibbs

By RNZ

A Kaikōura dairy farmer has been fined $35,000 for failing to register hundreds of cattle or track their movements on and off his farms.

Trevor Ronald Bolton, 59, was sentenced at the Kaikōura District Court on March 6, after pleading guilty to three charges under the National Animal Identification and Tracing (Nait) Act.

Under the act, the movement of all cattle or deer must be declared to Operational Solutions for Primary Industries within 48 hours.

Animals must also be fitted with a Nait tag and registered in the system by the time the animal is 180 days old or before it is moved off a farm. 

A Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) investigation found Bolton had not registered 269 animals, failed to declare 571 animals that were moved off-farm and failed to declare the movement of 83 animals onto his two large dairy farms.

He was fined $11,666 for each of the failures.

Paul Soper, MPI district manager of animal welfare and Nait compliance, Upper South, said the system was critical in tracing animals to manage disease or biosecurity incursions.

“This farmer’s failures under the Nait Act related to almost 1000 animals,” he said.

“As we have learned from our experience with Mycoplasma bovis, it only takes one animal to cause a problem.”

Soper said MPI took non-compliance with the animal tracing rules seriously.

“Put simply, when people in charge of animals disregard or fail to live up to their Nait obligations, they put the whole agricultural sector at risk,” he said.

- RNZ